The Wonder of the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie

Beautiful green hills cascade around me with the meandering black ribbons of road dissecting the farmers’ fields, the lengths of row upon row of grapevines shrivelled and hibernating for the winter, their gnarled spidery fingers stunted in the cool air. Imagine groups of brown and black cows lowing in the fields, munching away at the green grasses, lying under shrubs and trees and even one or two looking over the hills, watching as the crazy tourists honk their horn and laugh hysterically that the cow actually looked!

The sun shines, the air is crisp and cool, but the winter’s day is the best we’ve had all season and we’re costing along the highway with our cares flying behind us in the wind. It’s a great day to be out exploring the Yarra Valley. But what an amazing place this will be when spring blooms and the grapes are ready to be harvested…

We’ve decided to explore the Yarra Valley, but we have no plan. We’re driving in the direction of Healesville, but we don’t know what we’ll see along the way. Sure, the cows are entertaining and the lambs are so cute besides their mothers in the fields, but the sense of adventure is what we’re here for and its pinned itself into our hearts.

White picket fence after lazy hill, after vineyard, after farm and up ahead we see a sign; ‘Chocolaterie 8km’. I scream this out to my husband over the noise of our favourite songs blasting out of the tiny little radio in my car. I’m excited by the prospect of chocolate but not expecting the sudden left turn as the sporadic nature of our trip has fully enveloped my usually prepared and careful husband.

Along the black ribbon we continue, corner after corner and we’re wondering “did we miss it?”. By now we’ve passed a few cars but we’re starting to see a few more, and then a few more than that. Grandma and Grandpa have pulled over in their little read Ford that’s as old as the hills (and probably them) and we wonder whether Grandpa made a wrong turn cause he couldn’t hear Grandma. Animated hands fly up and down as we watch, but then we turn the next corner and our eyes are suddenly riveted to the scene up ahead.

I see flags, green and pink and yellow, flying in the wind. I see cars, one or two, and then all of a sudden there are lots of cars. 100 cars are parked near the brown building with the pink painted causeway. The gates are ahead of us and the draw of the Chocolaterie has us both mesmerised.

But then the Chocolaterie is floating past us, getting smaller and smaller and then suddenly it’s gone behind a hill.

We missed it! Damn! Turn around!

A few turns later and we’re there and I’m finally in heaven!

Truffles anyone?

There’s a gigantic room full of chocolate….wow…

Nut clusters accompanied by golf balls and tennis balls made from chocolate too!

Chocolate in every form you can imagine!

The Wall of Chocolate

What’s included in the Wall of Chocolate.

I’m in heaven!

We’ve only just stepped across the threshold and my husband turns to me, his grin almost as wide as my own (he can’t hide his sweet tooth from me either) and says “aren’t you glad I made that left turn?”.

Hell yes!

The chocolate wheels – yum!

And it doesn’t stop there. After cruising the isles looking at all the fantastic shapes and sizes of chocolates beyond imagination (perhaps this is an exaggeration), we are wooed towards the glittering delights of the chocolate wheel churning melted chocolate through its ebony, ivory and milky channels. We just have to order something from the cafe so we can partake of this liquid gold as well (they serve of cup of your choice of melted chocolate with all treats sold in the cafe! How cool!).

I love freckles, especially these giant ones.

Freeze-dried strawberries covered in chocolate.

More of the beautiful truffles (yes we sampled a few).

But it wasn’t just any macaroon that my husband decides to choose this day. It’s the gigantic pink one filled with chocolate mousse and topped in a combination of fresh and dried strawberries and a hint of pistachio. And does that thing taste good when drizzled with chocolate!

The giant strawberry macaroon.

Watch it! You can’t put that gigantic macaroon in your mouth. You just have to smash it first. Yum! This is fun.

The other sweet treats at the cafe.They also serve lunch foods as well.

Feeling just like kids in candy land we devoured our treats while sitting surrounded by chocolate, eager kids and the hidden smiles of adults pretending they don’t love chocolate as much as they want to admit it. There are tourists from here and overseas, the old and the young and best of all there’s sun streaming in the windows as we sit and enjoy each other’s company.